Saturday, January 30, 2010

Welcome to the Nest Children's Home in rural Limuru, Kenya. 15 years ago the Nest began providing care for street girls. Over time the Nest specialized its mission, and began providing care for children whose mother's are imprisoned (which means that these children are not adoptable). Roughly 100 children are in the custody of the Nest, and about 60 children live on this compound.

On the left is Irene Baumgartner of Germany. She is the director of the Nest, compassionate defender and protector of children.

Nellie calls herself the grandmother of the Nest. She is a nurse, primarily taking care of the smallest children. At the Nest there is a toddler nursery, and dormitories for the big boys and girls. In Kenya, when a woman is imprisoned, she is allowed to keep her nursing baby with her, so there are not many small babies at the Nest facility in Limuru.

The Nest also has "adoptable" babies in its custody, and they reside at the Halfway-House facility in Nairobi. In the past 18 months, over 50 Nest orphans have been adopted!

Many children who are in custsody of the Nest do not live at the Nest full-time. All of the high-school aged children attend boarding school, and only live at the Nest when school closes for term-break. In December the Nest is full and hopping with activity, and there are many extra helping hands!

This young lady was very serious, but determined to have her picture taken as she escorted me all over the compound. The Nest uses some of its grounds to grow vegetables. It takes a lot of food to grow all of these little bodies!

On Christmas day Irene always presents the Biblical account of Jesus' birth to the children. This year, as she told of how there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the inns of Bethlehem, one of the children made a startling connection: "The Nest did not say 'NO' to us, and it is good here!"

We at Saba, International praise God for the work that the Nest is doing to provide safe haven for children in Kenya whose mothers are imprisoned.